A cartoon is called a ninth art and is a medium familiar to ordinary persons. However, in conventional techniques, all processes of producing cartoons are manually performed. Accordingly, ordinary persons other than persons who are good at drawing or cartoonists cannot easily produce the cartoons.
The recent development of computers and content production techniques has led to automation of cartoon production. One of representative automation techniques studied in image processing and computer graphics is non-photorealistic rendering, which is a technique for converting photorealistic images into images like freehand drawings. However, these techniques are very difficult to use in cartoon production because it is not dedicated to the cartoon.
In general, cartoons have excellent information delivery capability and are compressed forms having a relatively small data amount. The cartoon easily represents character's emotions and delivers cartoonists' intentions using cartoon elements, e.g., exaggerated actions, exaggerated backgrounds, word balloons and the like. Ordinary users necessitate a system for enabling them to easily use cartoon elements to produce cartoons. However, such a system is not common and user-friendly.
In this environment, ordinary users who are not good at drawing still consider the cartoon production to be impossible because they cannot easily create picture materials.
Meanwhile, in a conventional cartoon production method, limited image resources in a previously built database (DB) are combined to produce cartoons. This does not allow users to produce creative cartoons. Even if the cartoon is produced using photorealistic photographs, the photographs are placed and adjusted and then cartoon elements, e.g., word balloons, are just added thereto. As a result, completed cartoons greatly differ from typical cartoons.